


The Second Wife

by AthenasAspis (TheAndromedaRecord)



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Brief character study, Canonical Child Abuse, Gen, What happened to handsome jack's second wife, angel realizes jack's never going to let her leave
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-01 06:57:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20810951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAndromedaRecord/pseuds/AthenasAspis
Summary: What happened to Handsome Jack's second wife, Theresa? Angel never found out.





	The Second Wife

**Author's Note:**

> lol i was bored so heavybreathingcat gave me a prompt and a title and i wrote this in like 45 minutes. enjoy

Angel didn’t come to the wedding. She had never actually been to a wedding.

Jack set up a discreet little camera so she could watch, but she didn’t. She couldn’t look at the woman in white; it reminded her too much of the wedding photos of Jack and her mom, the photos that Jack had burned. She still looked at them, though. The ECHOnet kept everything. 

He looked so in love as he gazed at his new bride, a woman Angel had come to think of as The Replacement. Her name was Theresa, and Angel wondered how much of their love was real. Love was a complicated thing, she thought, because it was so different between different people. Jack’s love for Theresa translated into cupcake towers and enamored vows. His love for Angel manifested in dull purple pipes and the sharp pain of surgery. 

“I do,” Theresa whispered. 

Jack brought her back a smushed piece of wedding cake with a smile that demanded gratitude. Angel thanked him and ate the cake very slowly. 

Angel soon realized that Theresa had no idea what she was getting herself into. Jack didn’t tell her anything. She was blushing, new, giggling, starry-eyed at Jack’s unfinished space station. She didn’t even know Jack had a daughter, and Jack made it very clear that Angel was not to tell her. 

Angel missed her mom. She had watched movies where, after a mom died, the dad remarried and the new wife was like a new mom. Not so here, of course: Jack hadn’t let anyone in to see her in years. Theresa seemed like she’d be a nice mom; her hands were soft and good at baking and her smile was made for bedtime stories. Angel hadn’t had a bedtime story in a while. 

Angel kept watching. She tracked Tannis’s location so Jack could steal the Vault Key back at some point. Angel tried not to think about what that would entail. It would be okay. Because once Jack had done what he set out to do, he wouldn’t need to keep Angel imprisoned anymore. He would be powerful enough to keep her safe wherever she went. 

And then Theresa found out.

Angel got careless. Forgot to monitor the computer Jack kept in his bedroom. Theresa got nosy. Perhaps she’d realized that Jack wasn’t telling her everything. Perhaps she’d seen little glimpses of the depths of his depravity; he could only keep it hidden for so long. Whatever the reason, she went snooping into secure files, and found the Angel project. The worst thing? Angel didn’t even realize until the next morning. She was taking a nap, against Jack’s orders. 

But she was watching when Theresa confronted Jack.

“How could you lie to me about this?” she cried. “You didn’t even tell me you had a daughter, let alone that—“

“Baby,” he pleaded, “it’s for everyone’s protection. She can’t control her powers—that’s how Selene died. I’m doing the right thing!”  
“The right thing?” Now Theresa was really crying, in frustration or perhaps sadness. “Locking her up, pumping her full of that chemical? She’s your daughter, not a science experiment! The poor child lost her mother, and you won’t even let your new wife see her. How much more have you been lying to me about?”

“It’s all for the best—“

“NO!” Theresa yelled. “This, this ‘Project Angel’ or whatever? It ends now. You are going to let that girl get some damn fresh air, or I am taking her and leaving. Any court would grant me custody.”

Angel had never heard Theresa swear before. She chewed on her knuckles, terrified. Jack recoiled like he’d been slapped in the face. 

“You…you can’t do that.”

“I can, and I will. You have one chance, Jack. Come clean and do right by your daughter, or both of us walk.”

Jack’s face twisted, becoming ugly. Angel cringed and forced herself to keep walking. She had to witness this. It was all her fault, what Jack would do to Theresa.

“I will not let you do that,” Jack said quietly. 

He pressed a button on the desk, and all the electronic monitoring equipment shut down.

“No!” Angel cried. She called Jack, but it went straight to voicemail. She desperately started typing on her keyboard, trying to find a way to do something, anything.

She still hadn’t met Theresa. She still hadn’t met the woman who cared so much and fought so hard for a foolish girl she’d never met. Jack had taken away the opportunity to finally have something resembling a mom again.

That was how Angel knew that he wasn’t actually trying to protect her.

——

“Where did Teresa go?” she asked, her voice trembling, next time Jack came for a visit. Maybe he’d just imprisoned her.

“We won’t be seeing any more of Theresa,” Jack said. He looked disturbed, sad. Angel had no sympathy for him. It was his fault. “You know how hard this is for me, right, Angel? This is why I need you to keep a better eye on our secure files, mmkay?” 

The implication was clear: this was all Angel’s fault. No one could ever know about her if she wanted them to survive. 

——

Theresa had a family on Eden-6, as it turned out. They’d been at the wedding; Angel had seen them, although she hadn’t really registered their presence. A quick search revealed what Angel had already suspected: all of Theresa’s family, along with any and all friends she could have been in contact with about her discovery, had died under mysterious circumstances. 

Angel’s very existence was a nuclear bomb in so many ways. To be close to her, to even know about her, was to court death. If Jack would slay anyone who had barely a chance of taking away his precious battery, there was no way he would ever let her leave the Bunker.

There was only one way out of the Bunker, and it was in a body bag.


End file.
